March was a very good and busy month at our house. To start the month out right, we learned that my dad is now cancer free and is feeling better each and every day. To add to our happiness and relief at my dad being better, my brother, sister-in-law and niece moved back to town after a year of being out of state. They are currently in the process of buying a house only an hour away from us and we have definitely enjoyed having them close by again. I love watching our girls play together and am so glad that they have each other to grow up with - and get into trouble with too. In the below picture we heard a loud crash in the kitchen and when we went to investigate we found the cousins cleaning up the evidence.
Later that same evening we heard a lot of noise coming from the bathroom and discovered all three girls giggling over what Lucy had deposited into the toilet.
We also fostered six baby chicks this past month for a friend of a friend who was on vacation. It was the perfect set up really, as we got the chicks in their infancy when they were cute, tiny and fluffy. Two weeks later we gave them back when they had conveniently reached the smelly, awkward, teenager stage. There were some tears when we said goodbye to them, but overall it was a great experience.
We also gave away our rooster this month after he began terrorizing our head hen who refused to give in to his advances. At first we thought the two of them were in a flirting match and our black hen was just playing hard to get but when we realized that the rooster wasn't allowing her to eat or leave the coop because she wouldn't let him have his way with her, we decided the rooster must go. The final straw was when he attacked her head so badly that she lost a part of her comb and was covered in blood. Fortunately for the rooster, Will had a coworker with a couple of acres and some hens who were in need of a rooster. He went packing the very next day.
Now that the weather is warming up and the sun has been shining more often than not, we are getting about ten eggs a day. It is hard to keep up with washing all of them!
The snow is still lingering in small, icy piles in shaded corners of our yard as I type this but I do believe we have seen the last of it.
It has been quite a winter and I have to say that Mother Nature has helped Will win an argument we were having about the necessity of a snow blower. I don't like how loud or smelly they are, and Will seems to think we can't live without the most high end one on the market. As a result we came to a stand still and ended up shoveling our super long driveway by hand all winter long. The kids helped a little bit, but I felt like I had to prove something and by the end of March my back was killing me and I had to admit to Will that a snow blower was perhaps a good idea after all. Pluses of our snow blower-free winter included great exercise, cool snow forts, and even one snow fall where ingenuity struck me and instead of shoveling the driveway, we rolled giant snowballs down it instead, clearing the cement in fun, zig-zagging patterns.
Lucy and Emma continue to evolve in their relationship with each other while keeping two things consistent - they are the best of friends and the worst of friends. This photo collage features them at their best. Going clockwise around the picture, they share Daddy's arms, a puddle, Daddy's back, a chair, a tattoo (not sure if you can see it from the picture but we had one tattoo that they both wanted, so Lucy came up with the idea of cutting it in half so each could have one) and even socks.
They also will at times, share a cuddle with me.
Their newest thing is playing a duet on the piano to Luke. They make up songs with his name in it, and put his picture between them while they play. This has to be the best music I have ever heard.
Lucy has been a sponge for learning this past month. That is, when she isn't busy drinking sour cream from a straw.
She is always busy doing a craft of her creation and seems to be at her happiest when elbow deep in paint, glitter, markers and scissor scraps. The other day I put Emma down for her afternoon nap and tucked Lucy in her room for her daily quiet time. I then went to my room and made a phone call while putting my feet up. Will came home from work about an hour later, and brought Lucy downstairs. A little bit later when I went downstairs with Emma I noticed the table was covered with a painting project. I asked Will if he and Lucy had painted in that short time I was still upstairs and he said no. After further investigation, I realized that Lucy had snuck downstairs during quiet time, gotten out the paint supplies, painted a couple of master pieces and then quietly got back upstairs with me none the wiser. I guess I should be glad that when my daughter sneaks, she does artwork.
Besides crafts, Lucy enjoys helping me in the kitchen. She gets a monthly subscription to High Five Magazine, which is the preschool version of Highlights Magazine. In every issue there is a recipe for kids to do with their parents. This past month's recipe was an asparagus egg salad. Lucy had a lot of fun reading the directions herself and cooking it with only minor assistance from me. She even tried the asparagus!
One of the biggest milestones Lucy achieved this past month was spelling her first words. She has been practicing her letters all month with little involvement from me and has been able to write her name for a couple of weeks now too. Aunt Jenna was over the other day watching Lucy's new found skills with letter writing and got the idea of putting the letters together. It became a game for us to figure out words Lucy could write with the twelve or so letters she knows. We call it our Preschool Version of Words with Friends. Here are the first two words that Lucy put together using the letters she knows how to write. She was so proud!
The biggest thing Lucy is proud of this past month however, was making her first purchase with her own money at the store. Every time she fills up her apple tree (think reusable sticker chart) she now gets three dollars. The first couple of times she earned the money, she spent it on little things like stickers and would pay us back when we got home. Will and I decided that it was time for her to learn the fine art of saving her money, and working towards a bigger goal. Lucy decided she wanted to save up for something for her baby dolls and when a baby doll carrier at Target went on sale a couple of weeks ago, Lucy counted up her money and realized that she had enough. She was so proud carrying her purse with her hard earned money in it, picking out the long awaited doll carrier at the store and holding her hand out while the cashier gave her the change back.
We are so proud of her too, and live for moments like this with our kids. April is on track to be even busier, with both our girls birthdays coming up and a new and exciting garden project coming to fruition. Stay tuned!
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